ISWAP leader’s killing marks turning point, but porous borders remain a threat — Expert warns
The killing of Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) leader Abu Bilal al-Minuki in a joint US-Nigerian strike on 16 May 2026 represents a major step forward in the counter-terrorism campaign in the Lake Chad Basin, according to Ghanaian geopolitical and security analyst Fidel Amakye, though he cautioned that the region’s porous borders could still allow the group to regroup.
Amakye, founder of Accra-based DefSEC Analytics Ltd, said al-Minuki had led one of the deadliest insurgencies in the region and built a reputation for brutality within Islamic State networks operating in Africa and beyond, developing a logistics network that frequently outmatched the Nigerian military.
While the strike eliminated al-Minuki, Amakye said experts have raised concerns over what comes next — particularly the risk that a contested succession within ISWAP could produce a more radical and unpredictable leadership. He drew a comparison to the 2009 death in police custody of Boko Haram founder Mohammed Yusuf, which he said escalated the insurgency and gave rise to more extreme factions.
A further risk, Amakye said, is that ISWAP fighters could exploit weak border controls across Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and Niger to evade an intensifying Nigerian military offensive launched in the wake of the strike. He noted that communities in the Lake Chad Basin have moved across the region freely for centuries, meaning borders “remain hard in a legal sense” but are porous in practice — a vulnerability long exploited by ISWAP, Boko Haram, and other armed groups.
Amakye pointed out that regional governments have recognised this problem for decades, establishing the Lake Chad Basin Commission in 1964 to manage shared resources and, later, the Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF) in the 1990s to combat cross-border banditry and organised crime.
Since the 16 May strike, follow-up US airstrikes and a Nigerian ground offensive have targeted multiple ISWAP bases in the northeast, which Amakye said disrupted the group’s ability to organise a smooth leadership transition or plan major retaliatory attacks. He said the only significant attack reported since has been an assault that killed three Nigerian soldiers.
Amakye said Washington remains committed to security cooperation with Nigeria, combining sustained military pressure with non-kinetic, Nigerian-led approaches. He noted that US engagement in the region has been uneven in recent years, citing the withdrawal of American forces from Chad after the death of Idriss Déby and the loss of a key US drone base in Niger following the 2023 coup — setbacks that concentrated US cooperation mainly in Nigeria and Cameroon.
More recently, he said, the US and Nigeria have moved to re-engage other Lake Chad Basin states, restoring ties with Niger and deepening cooperation with Cameroon’s Far North Region and with Chad. He also pointed to a new border security agreement between Nigeria and Cameroon as reinforcing regional efforts at a moment when ISWAP is under growing pressure.
Amakye concluded that the expanding, more coordinated security campaign across the basin — led by Nigeria with US support — could significantly degrade ISWAP’s capabilities and potentially pave the way toward defeating the group in the region.
